Cinemeducation Movies Have Long Been Utilized to Highlight Varied
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Cinemeducation Movies have long been utilized to highlight varied areas in the field of psychiatry, including the role of the psychiatrist, issues in medical ethics, and the stigma toward people with mental illness. Furthermore, courses designed to teach psychopathology to trainees have traditionally used examples from art and literature to emphasize major teaching points. The integration of creative methods to teach psychiatry residents is essential as course directors are met with the challenge of captivating trainees with increasing demands on time and resources. Teachers must continue to strive to create learning environments that give residents opportunities to apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information (1). To reach this goal, the use of film for teaching may have advantages over traditional didactics. Films are efficient, as they present a controlled patient scenario that can be used repeatedly from year to year. Psychiatry residency curricula that have incorporated viewing contemporary films were found to be useful and enjoyable pertaining to the field of psychiatry in general (2) as well as specific issues within psychiatry, such as acculturation (3). The construction of a formal movie club has also been shown to be a novel way to teach psychiatry residents various aspects of psychiatry (4). Introducing REDRUMTM Building on Kalra et al. (4), we created REDRUMTM (Reviewing [Mental] Disorders with a Reverent Understanding of the Macabre), a Psychopathology curriculum for PGY-1 and -2 residents at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. REDRUMTM teaches topics in mental illnesses by use of the horror genre. We chose this genre in part because of its immense popularity; the tropes that are portrayed resonate with people at an unconscious level. Despite selected works being primarily “monster movies,” great care is taken not to perpetuate the stigma of mental illness or to portray patients as “monsters.” The main objective of the REDRUMTM Psychopathology course is to enhance learning through creative discussion of examples of psychopathology that come from film and literature which is augmented by reading selected chapters from the required textbook, Kaplan & Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry (5). This is achieved by selected works serving a metaphorical or symbolic role in the etiology, clinical presentation, course, and prognosis of the mental illnesses highlighted in our course syllabus. Our selected movie list that comprises the course syllabus has itself evolved into its own didactic titled “52in52.” Origin of 52in52 When Bruce Campbell retweeted the United States of Horror Movies map (pic.twitter.com/JTmemXHfOf), little did he know that he would help create our Psychopathology course syllabus. All of the movies that participating students and residents watch to prepare for REDRUMTM are included on the map. Since participants watch an average of one movie per week, we titled our course syllabus “52in52.” The syllabus becomes its own didactic With the commencement of the 2014-15 academic year, the course directors at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School decided to frame the movie schedule as a virtual road trip across the United States, using GroovyBruce’s map as a guide. Beginning the week of July 1, 2014, we “visited” one state each week as listed in our itinerary by watching the movie assigned to that state. In addition to the movie supplementing the weekly PowerPoint lecture, the discussion during the session resulted in a weekly blog on how the movie related to pertinent teaching points in psychiatry and psychopathology. This website houses a compilation of our 52in52 blogs. References 1. Lynd-Balta E: Using literature and innovative assessments to ignite interest and cultivate critical thinking skills in an undergraduate neuroscience course. CBE Life Sci Educ 2006; 5:167–174 2. Fritz GK, Poe RO: The role of a cinema seminar in psychiatric education. Am J Psychiatry 1979; 136:207–210 3. Sierles FS: Using film as the basis of an American Culture course for first-year psychiatry residents. Acad Psychiatry 2005; 29:100–104 4. Kalra G: Psychiatry Movie Club: a novel way to teach psychiatry. Indian J Psychiatry 2011; 53:258–260 5. Sadock BJ, Sadock VA: Kaplan & Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry, 10th Edition. Philadelphia, PA, Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 2007 Table of Contents Week Month State Movie Week Month State Movie July January 1 4 Maine Carrie 27 2 Tennessee Evil Dead 2 11 New Hampshire YBR 28 9 Kentucky Return Living Dead 3 18 Vermont Wolf 29 16 Indiana An American Crime 4 25 Massachusetts Jaws 30 23 Ohio Nightmare on Elm Street August 31 30 West Virginia Wrong Turn 5 1 Rhode Island The Conjuring February 6 8 Connecticut I Spit on your Grave 32 6 Pennsylvania Night of the Living Dead 7 15 New York Amityville Horror 33 13 NJ Friday the 13th 8 22 Michigan Jingles 34 20 Delaware I Can See You 9 29 Wisconsin Giant Spider Invasion 35 27 Maryland The Blair Witch Project September March 10 5 Minnesota Jennifer's Body 36 6 Wash DC The Exorcist 11 12 North Dakota Leprechaun 37 13 Virginia Mama 12 19 Montana Alien Abduction 38 20 North Carolina Pumpkinhead 13 26 Idaho Idaho Transfer 39 27 South Carolina The New Daughter October April 14 3 Utah Carnival of Souls 40 3 Georgia Deliverance 15 10 Wyoming Close Encounters 41 10 Florida Jeepers Creepers 16 17 South Dakota Badlands 42 17 Alabama Laid to Rest 17 24 Iowa The Crazies 43 24 Mississippi The Beast Within 18 31 Illinois Halloween May November 44 1 Louisiana Skeleton Key 19 7 Missouri You're Next 45 8 Texas Texas Chainsaw Massacre 20 14 Kansas Near Dark 46 15 Hawaii A Perfect Getaway 21 21 Nebraska Children of the Corn 47 22 Alaska 30 Days of Night 22 28 Colorado The Shining 48 29 Canada Cube December June 23 5 Arizona Psycho 49 5 Washington The Ring 24 12 New Mexico The Hills Have Eyes 50 12 Oregon The Fog 25 19 Oklahoma Terror at Tenkiller 51 19 Nevada Tremors 26 26 Arkansas Town Dreaded Sundown 52 26 California Scream Movie of the week: Carrie (1976; 2013) Synopsis The original 1976 film is about a misfit high school girl, Carrie White, who discovers that she has telekinetic powers. Repressed by a domineering mother and bullied by her peers at school, her efforts to fit in lead to a dramatic confrontation during the senior prom. Following a mass murder in the high school gymnasium, Carrie breaks down in her mother's arms at home. Believing the devil has possessed her daughter, her mother tries to kill her. Carrie is cornered in the kitchen, but sends knives flying at her mother, pinning her to the wall and killing her. How it relates to the field of psychiatry The Feeding and Eating Disorder section of the DSM-5 includes feeding and eating disorders of infancy or early childhood as well as 3 specific diagnoses including Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Extensive research followed the dissemination of preliminary criteria for Binge Eating Disorder in Appendix B of DSM-IV, and findings supported the clinical utility and validity of its inclusion in the DSM-5. Films that depict possession serve as a metaphor for dissociation. Accordingly, these films may be viewed as illustrations of mental disorders including dissociative and related disorders such as the feeding and eating disorders. Anorexia Nervosa may be conceptualized in psychodynamic terms as a reaction to the demand that adolescents behave more independently and increase their sexual functioning. Patients then replace preoccupations about eating for other age-specific pursuits. A character analysis of Carrie reveals an adolescent who is unable to separate psychologically from her mother. Her body is perceived as though it is possessed by an introject of an intrusive, domineering and unempathic mother. Starvation serves as an unconscious means of starving and destroying the internalized mother-object. The tension between Carrie and her mother is evident throughout the movie and begins to crescendo before the senior prom. As Carrie gets ready for the evening, her mother tells her that everyone will laugh at her. Carrie defies her mother, leaving with her boyfriend, Tommy. In the movie’s penultimate scene, Carrie kills her mother in the kitchen by impaling her with knives, an act symbolic of her unconscious wish to destroy her intrusive mother. The setting (kitchen) and means (cutlery) are metaphorical for Anorexia Nervosa. Key Words: Carrie, Stephen King, dissociation, dissociative disorders, feeding and eating disorders, Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, internalized mother- object Next week’s movie: YellowBrickRoad (2010) Movie of the week: YellowBrickRoad (2010) Last week’s movie: Carrie (1976; 2013) Synopsis One morning in 1940, the entire population of Friar, New Hampshire disappeared. 572 people left behind all of their possessions and walked together up a winding mountain trail into the wilderness never to be heard from again. A search party dispatched by the U.S. Army eventually discovered the remains of nearly 300 of Friar's evacuees. Many had frozen to death while others were slaughtered. Over the years, a quiet cover-up operation managed to weave the story of Friar into the stuff urban legends are made of. The town has slowly repopulated, but the vast wilderness is mostly untracked, with the northern-most stretches off limits to local hunters and loggers. In 2008, the coordinates for the "YELLOWBRICKROAD" trail head were declassified. The first official expedition into the sick and twisted wilderness will attempt to solve the mystery of the lost citizens of Friar. The researchers’ hopes to turn a legend into an item of recorded history are jeopardized when their equipment fails; leaving them lost and at the will of what evil lurks in the woods.